


Ambition - The Final Round

by medusatree



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Ambition: Heart's Desire (Fallen London), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24958360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medusatree/pseuds/medusatree
Summary: Sometimes bonds are formed, sometimes they are broken, and sometimes one can not be sure which is which unless one reaches out.
Kudos: 15





	Ambition - The Final Round

**Ambition - The Final Round**  
The Marvellous has been ended—grudgingly, perhaps, but forever. No more winners will taste the ashes of victory. No more players will be imprisoned by their own longing.  


Some players may be less satisfied with this than others. Perhaps you should make amends, or at least appraise the likelihood of vengeance.  


**Seek news of Mr Pages**  
Little has been seen of Mr Pages since your final match. London is relieved. It was everywhere for several days, providing incoherent information on the industries of its associates and cornering pedestrians to harangue them on the reprehensibility of monkeys.  


    

**An equilibrium?**  
None of your usual sources have news of the Master—not even the booksellers on St Clement's Row, and they keep closer tabs on its activities than any revolutionary. Finally you are forced to send a calling card to the Bazaar itself. You and Pages have always been friendly; surely that should earn you a meeting, even if it’s only to be railed at in person?  


    

Apparently not. Your card is sent back, a smoking sigil on the back communicating the intention of revenges too specific and numerous to be described on a single document. The next morning you receive a frantic letter from your publishing house about the arrival of the Ministry of Public Decency and the seizure of all your works, the stereotypes, the printing presses, and every scrap of paper in the building, including the Christmas cards tacked up by the apprentices. Two hours later you receive an equally frantic update describing the sudden appearance of Mr Iron itself, who offered the use of its own presses—untouchable by the Ministry—for a very reasonable fee, until your own are returned. This seemed to be considered an inevitability.  


    

Well. Hopefully the favour you’ve won from some Masters will outweigh the enmity of others. Perhaps you should consider writing more romances before that goodwill runs out.  


**Arrange a meeting with Virginia**  
She will not want to see you. It will be worse if she does.  


    

**Very civilized, all things considered**  
Virginia arrives at Dante’s wearing a smile that makes the table nearest the door ask for their bill. You had intended to tell her that the Prince was, in fact, still imprisoned on Corpsecage Island over entrées, but you decide it is perhaps the better part of valor to get that out of the way before ordering.  


    

The meal looks up after that. You do have to leave a larger tip than usual for the trouble of cleaning up all the blood, but Virginia is kind enough to leave you with one arm in a condition to enjoy your trifle. After you pay she reaches over to squeeze your good shoulder and suggests that any further revenges for your charade will not involve permanent damage. She leaves with a certain confidence and lightness to her step that you had forgotten she once had.  


**Seek out the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem**  
Since the Marvellous ended your dreams have been stranger than usual. You should find out whether they’ll get worse.  


    

**Everywhere and nowhere**  
You walk every street in London looking for a tall man wearing brass buttons, but the Manager is nowhere to be found. When you finally go to the Royal Bethlehem itself, the doors will not open. Beyond the stained glass the light seems dimmer and grayer than usual.  


    

At night you dream of a cedar forest. Sometimes you wander long enough to find a river. Your feet sink into clay as you walk along the bed. When you reach the city at its end, the gates are barred. No fires glow behind its walls. No music rises into the heavens. When you wake each morning your pillowcase is soaked with tears.  


    

One day this routine is interrupted with a knock to your door before even the earliest post arrives. There is no one on your step when you answer, nor on the street. But waiting for you is a folded square of paper covered in clay dust. When you open it a single silver coin falls and chimes on the ground, and the only words upon the paper are THANK YOU.  


**Stop by St. Fiacre’s Cathedral**  
The doorman at the Dilmun Club tells you that the Bishop has not been in for some time. If you wish to speak with him, you will have to present yourself at the cathedral.  


    

**The ground from which he was taken**  
You are a familiar sight by now, and the vergers point you towards the Bishop’s study without needing to ask. It is awash with candlelight: from cheap tapers, from heavy pillars, from altar lights. The Bishop himself is at his desk, staring unseeingly at the open book in front of him. “Perhaps you and Beechwood are right,” he says as soon as you you enter, as if he were waiting for you, “that my heart’s desire would not have been all I dreamed it to be. But—“  


    

But you denied him the chance to find out for himself. His voice catches in his throat. His head bows. The Bishop is not normally a man of great expression, but now the lack feels like the yawning sorrow of the zee.  


    

At last he swallows. “You have been a good friend to my family and I. You have advanced my goals through your own blood and toil. If I ever stand in the Garden someday, it will be in some part due to your efforts.” His gaze returns to his scripture. “I understand your decision, and I empathize with it.” But he does not forgive it. Not yet. Maybe not until you both stand in the Mountain’s light.  


**Pay a visit to the Topsy King**  
Tristram Bagley, at least, might be glad to see you.  


    

**A bell rung, a candle lit**  
A plaintive melody drifts through the air streets away from the Topsy King’s court. Far below, passerby slow and a few artists make very credible attempts at climbing the drainpipes. Tristram himself is perched upon a high chimney; he pauses in his playing and sweeps his bow down in a grand gesture when he sees you.  


    

The view is an especially stunning one, stretching from the lights of the carnival to the tragic tilt of the House of Chimes. This high up, the black spires of the Bazaar and their ruddy glow do not seem so distant at all. You make note of the quantity of ashes strewn about Tristram’s feet. He make note of you noting, and smiles ruefully. “There’ve been new symbols added since I last paid attention. That’s how I ended up in the Flit the first time: I wanted to get a good look without worrying about crowds or the Masters’ servants noticing me.”  


    

He shuffles through the libretto propped against a chimney-pot. The stains are familiar; you suppose he reclaimed it on his last midnight visit to the palace. You recognize many of the signs from your own studies, and suggest a substitution of symbols that might allow the percussion section to survive a few notes longer. He blinks, studies the symbol more closely—and then laughs and strikes it out. “I should have guessed, after you managed to stage it.” He hands you another page to look over, and another, and asks your opinion on whether a chorus is even feasible in the Correspondence—  


    

Back at street level hours later, your head whirls as if drunk. The amount of spore-toffee you will need to bribe the Knotted Sock with to drag crates of lead up to the Flit is unconscionable. You do not mind. You do not mind at all.  


**Return home**  
The Monkey—Beechwood—awaits you. Despite the end of the game that brought you together, he does not yet seem inclined to leave.  


    

**Heart’s desires**  
When you return, Beechwood is setting up a game of chess in your parlor. You have both been avoiding cards. The chair across from him stands under a window, and for a single moment you wonder what the room would look like golden with sunlight—  


    

You sit down. Generously, perhaps, he has given you white. After the first move you lean back to study him. He sits taller now, straighter, easy but intent. He chews idly on a thick thumbnail as he considers his options, and you wonder if you are glimpsing the man he once was.  


    

You do not need gifts from the Masters. If they can do it, it can be done, and it can be undone.  


    

As he reaches forward to play you suggest that perhaps he should visit your laboratory someday. Some of the subjects you are exploring might be of interest to him.

**ONWARDS**

**Author's Note:**

> I love every single player of the Marvellous and every ridiculous thing they put me through over the course of seven years so that I could ultimately lose a card game to a monkey.


End file.
